Member Update: January 2018

The Prime Minister’s visit to China comes at a time of unprecedented numbers of Chinese visitors to the UK.

Visitor numbers in 2017 look set to exceed half a million for the first time, up from a record 478,000 in 2016. With the Chinese being the world’s biggest tourist spenders, and accounting for over 25% of all tax free shopping in London’s West End, boosting Chinese visitors is central to the growth of the UK’s tourist and retail sectors.

In recent years UK China Visitor Alliance has worked with the Government to devise and deliver innovative improvements to the visitor visa application process. These initiatives have clearly helped encourage many more Chinese visitors come to the UK, as the figures show.

But with the British economy facing Brexit uncertainty we need to build on these successes by identifying even more ways to make the UK a place the Chinese want to visit and lowering some of the barriers that might prevent some of them from making the trip.

Over the coming months the UK China Visitor Alliance will be announcing some new partnerships and initiatives with Government and businesses which will boost even further Chinese visitor numbers.